Ruta 40 Tres Lagos to Bajo Caracoles - how long?

[Cords and Aash]

My wife & I are about to head up Ruta 40 from Tres Lagos to Perito Merino. We are two up on a 1150GS Adventure and are aware that there is no fuel between TL & BC. Can we do the 350kms from TL to BC in a day easily, or will it be a huge day? We will be travelling at a safe speed - not pushing it, and we also have the ability to rough camp if necessary.
Cheers,
Cords

[amcwillie]

Ruta 40 is always a big day. If the weather is really bad and strong wind it takes most of the day to do the 200 miles. If the weather is great it still takes just as long because you just have to stop a take pics and enjoy the day.

I just don't remember having to go over 150 miles at the most for fuel on Ruta Cuarenta.

You're good to go on an Adventure anyway, with that big fuel tank. I rode that on an 1100 and an 1150 Adv and had no fuel problems on either one.

See ya on the road...We leave Vina del Mar on Tuesday Jan. 9th heading south. If you see some Alaska license plates, that's our group. Come ride with us

Curtis

[Big Red]

There's no question that it's a big day and it will probably be windy but the Adventure can do it without problems. Just make sure that there hasn't been heavy rain the day or two before because it has a few ugly muddy stretches when it's wet. Fortunately the wind dries it out again pretty quickly.
And it's not a bad little day trip out to the Los Manos caves from Bajo Caracoles the next day, either.
Have fun and keep in the wheel ruts!

Grant F

[Mick O'Malley]

Hi

Loads here on this.

Regards, Mick

[Cords and Aash]

Thanks for the responses.We have now done that section of Ruta 40 so can give some info for others (in addition to the replies posted by others on this thread already!)
We decided to ride from El Chalten to Gobernador Gregores & stop there the night. This was about 300kms and given that we had good weather (very little wind!!), we could make it easily in a day. Obviously on an Adventure fuel range was no problem & we refuelled at GG.
The next day was about 350kms to township of Perito Merino & was again no problems in a day - we only got a bit of heavy wind on the last 50 km section before the pavement started approx 40kms south of PM. We had a bit of wing on the section heading east to west before the turn off to Parque Nat Perito Merino, but nothing too bad, so I think we were quite fortunate!
The ripio was better this day, except for a section of detour around roadworks. As others have said - slow & steady is better. We found we were doing about 50-60kph for most of it, faster on some sections & slower on others.
We have just come up the Caraterra Austral from Chile Chico to Futalefu & can say that in some patches, it is rougher than Ruta 40 (but no wind) & is a MUST DO for anyone in this area as the scenery is awesome. We were also blessed by the weather, as we had sun for almost all of the last week.
Cheers,
Cords